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Back in May, I wrote about a Seiko release that got me thinking about the brand’s current perception among watch enthusiasts. Those Seiko 5 sports watches were a clear throwback, I think, to a time period when Seiko was the brand of distinction and choice for fans of affordable watches. Those days are gone. We still love Seiko, of course, but there’s just a lot more competition, and everyone’s game has been stepped up a bit. It’s worth remembering, too, that the Seiko of a decade ago wasn’t just the enthusiast’s choice for divers. Seiko has always made a huge variety of watches in all different styles, and another recent release from the brand is a good reminder of that, and a throwback release in its own way.
Back in the day, being involved in watch forums meant that you’d see endless questions about what watches to buy as an alternative to any number of rare, expensive, or otherwise unattainable luxury watches. That way of thinking about watch collecting has really shifted in recent years with the growth of the microbrand scene and the wide acceptance of new, original designs. But a nicely made “dupe” still has a place, and Seiko is about as good as anyone at delivering. The new SWR103, SWR104, and SWR106 are simple rectangular dress watches running on a quartz movement that retail for a little over $300. They also look a whole lot like the Cartier Tank, down to some very specific details.
Seiko has made a Tank dupe for as long as I’ve been interested in watches. In the era where you could score mechanical Seiko SNKs on Amazon for under $100, their quartz Tank lookalikes were positioned right alongside them, digitally speaking, and were also priced in a way that encourages a bit of impulse shopping. It always struck me that these watches were not merely seemingly inspired by the Tank, but, in a lot of ways, direct copies of that watch’s form, right down to the cabachon crown and the profile created by the “brancards” that run alongside the case. It’s not exactly the same of course, but these elements combined with dials that hit the important design cues of the classic Tank make these more like the Cartier original than you’d expect from a giant brand like Seiko. If the Rivanera is the most indirect riff on the idea of the Tank, Seiko’s version is the closest we get to a direct homage.
These watches measure 39mm from lug to lug, 27.2mm across, and just 6.4mm thick. The new watches are narrower than the most recent generation of Seiko’s basic rectangular dress watch (the SWR049 is 28.4mm wide). It’s still slightly larger than the large version of Cartier’s Tank Must and Tank Louis Cartier, which come in at 33.7mm x 25.5mm, with a nearly identical case height. So the Seikos will certainly wear larger, and it probably shouldn’t be surprising that for the price you’d be sacrificing some refinement of the Cartier version, which is literally over 10x the cost (to start). But the small decrease in width is an improvement, and should make the whole package feel a bit more proportional and Tank-like.
This release includes three variants. The SWR103 has a stainless steel case, white dial, with roman numerals. The SWR104 has the same dial treatment (with the addition of small gold hour markers to supplement the Romans) with a gold tone case. And the SWR106 has a gold tone case, champagne dial, and faceted batons at each hour.
This release currently appears to be limited to the Australian and European markets, but will likely be relatively easy to track down in the United States with a little internet sleuthing. While these watches are certainly not directly aimed at the enthusiast customer, there’s something almost comforting about realizing Seiko still makes a watch like this that could be a potential gateway into the hobby for a new collector. Seiko
